Systems and various types of software have been extensively used to assist medical professionals in making diagnoses of patient conditions, and to assist medical professionals in prescribing particular courses of medical treatments for those diagnoses.
For example, a medical software system provided under the trade name “ACORN” is a system that was developed by the Accident & Emergency Department of Westminster Hospital in London that advises on management of chest pain patients in the emergency room. Another medical software system is provided under the trade name “ADE Monitor” and is being developed by the Washington University School of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine division of Medical Informatics. This system was developed to monitor patient clinical data for potential adverse drug events. Yet another similar medical software system is offered under the trade name “CADIAG-II” and has been developed by the Department of Medical Computer Sciences, University of Vienna, the Department of Internal Medicine III, section of Rheumatology and the Department of Internal Medicine I, Divisions of Oncology, University of Vienna Medical School. This system is directed to colon diseases, and is a computer-assisted consultation system to support the differential diagnostic process in internal medicine.
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2002/0120471 by Drazen discloses a system that includes a database for storing a plurality of different medical guidelines for different health conditions, and for storing historical patient information data for a plurality of patients. The patient information is gathered over a global communications network, i.e., the Internet, and evaluated to provide a patient specific risk report based upon the medical guidelines stored in the database. A physician's treatment plan may be generated to reduce patient risk based on the medical guidelines.
This system, however, may be disadvantageous as it allows a physician to become reliant upon a system, instead of the physician's own medical knowledge. Further, this system fails to monitor performance of the physician with respect to whether the medical treatment prescribed by the physician is proper. Accordingly, such a system may cause a waste in resources.
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2002/0143579 by Docherty et al. discloses a system that identifies opportunities for direct physician intervention to improve prescribing practices and patient compliance. More specifically, the system collects information relating to a physician's prescription practice, and analyzes that information with respect to expert guidelines. The system identifies deviations from expert guidelines and provides the physician with intervention information.
A system for assessing physician performance that includes a database to store patient/physician contact is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,073 to Tyuluman et al. An evaluator is coupled to the database to evaluate the data using statistical analysis. This system may be used to define a standard of care for a core element of patient population. The standard of care may be updated based upon more efficient and more effective treatments, and the system may identify doctors who perform outside the defined standard of care. These systems, however, do not take into account the several standards that a physician must analyze when prescribing medical treatments, i.e., hospital standards, medical standards, insurance standards, etc.
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2003/0055679 by Soil et al. discloses a computerized patient management system that includes a patient module, a physician module, and a database. The system allows patients to input their patient information into the patient module. The database includes medical assessment and treatment information used to analyze the patient information and generate a report. The physician may edit the report and add assessment and management plans. The physician may also select patient educational materials to be provided to the patient, along with a health summary, at a patient interview. This system, however, relies heavily on the patients' ability to properly enter their patient information. Further, this system provides access to persons that do not have as much medical knowledge as a trained medical professional.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,074 to Evans is directed to a medical records system that creates and maintains patient data electronically. The system includes a graphical user interface that has touch screens. The system captures patient data, such as patient complaints, lab orders, medications, diagnoses, and procedures. A medical professional may use a pen based portable computer with wireless connection to a computer networked to access, analyze, update and electronically annotate patient data. In short, the Evans '074 patent eliminates the need to create and maintain physical data record.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,283,761 to Joao discloses a system that includes a central processing unit for processing symptom information and condition information corresponding to a patient, in conjunction with healthcare information, healthcare theories, healthcare principals, and healthcare research. The processor generates a diagnostic report of the patient that contains a possible diagnosis. The Joao '761 patent discloses providing access to healthcare providers, patients, and insurance companies so that proper updates of patient information may be made. The system may be used to allow a medical professional to ascertain a medical diagnosis, verify diagnosis or treatment, or allow a patient to perform a self diagnosis. The Joao '761 patent also discloses a system for providing training and continuing education services to medical providers that is delivered electronically.
Another issue that has arisen with the above systems is that there may be a need to enter duplicative information. Medical professionals generally follow various protocols depending on a presumed diagnosis. Within various protocols, there may exist requirements to enter duplicative information depending on various medical observations. For example, a medical professional may make an initial observation, and associated diagnosis, but then change the diagnosis. When entering a new protocol, however, it may be necessary for the medical professional to re-enter medical/observatory information that is duplicative. Of course, such duplicative activity is a strain on the tight schedules of medical professionals. Further, when making a change from one diagnosis to another, or when additional medical observations are made, additional medical protocols may not be available to the medical professional for ready viewing, i.e., the medical professional may need to retrieve the new protocol from another database. Again, this may be disadvantageous to the medical professional as it constrains the medical professional's time.